Auditor to get Kilpatrick's office credit card records

Auditor to get Kilpatrick's office credit card recordsBY ZACHARY GORCHOWFREE PRESS STAFF WRITER Credit card records requested as part of an audit of Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick's administration were deliberately withheld from auditors while Kilpatrick was still in office, the city's new chief financial officer said Wednesday. Joseph Harris, named chief financial officer by Mayor Ken Cockrel Jr., said the Finance Department has the records sought by auditors and will make them available. "I was told by my staff for political reasons, they were told not to respond," he said. The Detroit City Council ordered an audit of spending in the Mayor's Office after the text message scandal broke earlier this year, but just before Kilpatrick resigned on Sept. 18, the Office of the Auditor General reported it could not complete the audit because it had not received all the information requested. Kilpatrick's staff has insisted it cooperated with the auditor general and made its staff available, but said auditors kept coming back with excessive follow-up requests. Norm White, who was chief financial officer this year until Cockrel took office and reassigned him to be director of the Detroit Department of Transportation, could not immediately be reached Wednesday. One of the areas in question was credit card records, according to an Oct. 6 letter from Auditor General Loren Monroe to the council. Kilpatrick came under scrutiny in his first term after the Free Press reported he used his taxpayer-funded credit card to pay for swanky meals, spa visits and chauffeured sedans, purchases the former mayor said were made while he was traveling on city business. Under the city's Finance Directive 137, the chief financial officer must maintain a list of all city credit cards, gasoline cards, purchasing cards and telephone cards. The list must include the authorized user and credit limit. Without the records, auditors could not complete an audit, Monroe said. Monroe also said the Finance Department had failed to turn over records regarding travel expenses for the mayor's Executive Protection Unit. Finance Directive 150 requires the Mayor's Office to provide the Finance Department with travel expense records each month related to the Executive Protection Unit. But Harris said the Finance Department has no such records in its possession.